A
Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 295 people aboard crashed Thursday
in Ukraine near the Russian border after reportedly being hit by a
missile, according to an adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry.
Anton
Gerashenko, the adviser, says on his Facebook page the plane was flying
at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit Thursday by a missile
fired from a Buk launcher, the Associated Press reports.
A similar launcher was seen by AP journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.
BUK,
also known as SA-17 GRIZZLY, is a mobile anti-aircraft system mounted
usually on a tracked vehicle or truck that can simultaneously track and
strike six targets flying from different directions and at different
altitudes, according to military thinktank Globalsecurity.org.
It
was no immediately clear who would have been in control of such a
launcher in the restive area where Ukrainian forces are battling ethnic
Russian separatists.
Malaysia
Airlines said on Twitter that it "has lost contact of MH17 from
Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace."
Russia's
Interfax news agency, quoting an unidentified aviation source, said
Malaysia Airlines flies an Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur route that crosses
Ukraine and Russian territory.
The unidentified source, according
to Interfax, said the plane was 30 miles from Russian airspace when it
began to go down. It said the burning wreckage of the plane was found on
the ground in Ukraine.
The report, quoting the aviation source, says there were 280 passengers and 15 crew members aboard.
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